In December last year, China’s import volumes of steel bars, angles/channels, steel plate and steel pipes/hollow profiles amounted to 80,000 mt, 20,000 mt, 850,000 mt and 30,000 mt, down 19.3 percent, 39.8 percent, 15.5 percent and 0.8 percent year on year, respectively, according to the monthly import and export data issued by the Chinese customs authorities.
In 2018, China’s import volumes of steel bars, and angles/channels respectively amounted to 1.09 million mt and 350,000 mt, down 9.8 percent and 13.7 percent year on year, while its imports of steel plate and steel pipes/hollow profiles totaled 11.11 million mt and 410,000 mt, up 0.4 percent and 0.1 percent year on year, respectively.
As previously reported by SteelOrbis, in December last year China imported 1.01 million mt of finished steel, decreasing by 16.3 percent year on year. In the full year, China imported 13.17 million mt of finished steel, down 1.0 percent year on year.